


Quarter After One

by dovingbird



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Cheating, Drinking, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:12:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the worst when he’s got the scotch in his hand. When he’s had three already. When he’s studying the shot glass, saying that he’ll only have the next one if he can pour it without his hand shaking. When he’s deciding the first little quiver don’t count.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quarter After One

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now."

It's the worst when he's got the scotch in his hand. When he's had three already. When he's studying the shot glass, saying that he'll only have the next one if he can pour it without his hand shaking. When he's deciding the first little quiver don't count.  
  
He pads barefoot around his apartment, challenging himself to keep his steps in a line, watching the grains in the hardwood swim as he stares down at them. He has his hand in his pocket and he's fingering something sleek and warm and trying to pretend he don't know what it is, but that's getting harder with every passing second.  
  
He sips. He feels the burn. He closes his eyes for just a moment to relish it.  
  
What's she doing right now, he wonders. What's she thinking? What's she look like? The questions swirl around in his head dangerously, until they're tinged with pink around the edges, until he's wondering what she's wearing and if she's thinking of him. But he knows if she is, there's no happiness or pleasure in it, not anymore. He burned that bridge too long ago.  
  
She's like a plant, he decides, some harmless looking plant, maybe with a bright flower or two, one that invites you to get close and breathe in, and while you're enjoying the sweetest smell you ever did encounter, she's infecting you with her spores. They take you over, day by day, until here, two years out, she's got you pacing in your own damn apartment. Thinking of her sweet laugh. Thinking of her sweet voice.  
  
Hearing that sweet sound she makes when you hit the right spot inside of her.  
  
Shot number four's gone before he even notices he tipped it back.  
  
He reaches for the scotch bottle, but when his fingers almost tip it off the mantle he pauses, studies it with a furrowed brow. If he can't even pick the damn thing up, there's a pretty good chance he's not gonna be able to pour it without shaking. But he don't wanna be alone either. Silent or not, the glass is a companion. It's a distraction.  
  
He becomes more and more aware of the shape in his pocket, how it's got a large square bump on it that his thumb keeps catching on. He tightens his hand around the shot glass 'til he thinks he's gonna break it, and he barely manages to slide it onto the mantle, just barely avoids dropping it. He pulls the shape out of his pocket, and as it swims into focus he breathes in deeply.  
  
He bought this diamond ring six months ago, and he still can't put it to good use, 'cuz that'll mean it's really over.  
  
He sits down heavily and sighs. Normally when he's this deep in his head he'll give in, get in his car, go driving straight to where he don't need to go, but he'd wreck not even a mile down the road, he knows that, and that's why instead he reaches for his phone. Sometimes she's the one to get to him first, but he knows she's normally pretty content with just listening to his voice, with just shooting the shit for twenty or thirty minutes, but that's not enough for him. It's never been enough. He sends a text instead. _'I need you.'_ He doesn't wait for a response. She won't send one. She'll pace for five minutes, think she's strong enough to stay away, and then she'll spritz on that infectious perfume and get in her car and be here five minutes later.  
  
He's still thankful he had an excuse for Hannah to move out. She'd prayed long and hard about that year-long mission trip to Cambodia, that's what she said, but he thought there was a little relief on both their faces when she got on that plane two months ago. Relief that they'd have a little distance from the fights. Time to think. Time to plan.  
  
Time to cheat.  
  
He tucks the ring under some abandoned song lyrics on his coffeetable, where she won't see it, where he won't forget it, just in time for a knock at the door. He stands up, runs a hand through his hair as he approaches it, but he don't even need to look through the little hole to see who it is. He opens the door. And there she is.  
  
He thinks he got her out of bed, maybe, because her curls are a little flat, a little mussed, but her clothes are perfect. They fit her like a glove, just like he likes, so he can see all those incredible curves of hers. He takes a long moment just to take her in from head-to-toe before he steps back and dips his head, rubbing the back of his neck. She walks past him and releases a few more of those pheromone spores, enough that he already feels a buzz vibrating in his veins.  
  
She pauses at the fireplace and stares at the bottle. "How drunk are you?" she asks softly, her voice gravely.  
  
"Not much," he mutters.  
  
She plucks the glass up between her long, elegant fingers. "How many have you had?" Her voice is firmer this time, punctuated by a sweep of her dark eyes to meet his own.  
  
He can't lie when she's looking him in the eye. He rubs his neck a little harder. "Four."  
  
He hears her exhale through her nose, sees the way she looks down just for a moment, and he feels the stab of her disappointment. "I see."  
  
"Sometimes it keeps me away," he murmurs, feeling a little anger rising to counter that disappointment. "Thought you might've appreciated that."  
  
She sets the shot glass down, but hard, the clanking of the glass ringing through the room. "I bet it does."  
  
He watches as she crosses the room and sets down her purse, keeping her back to him. It gives him a chance to look her over again, this time in greater detail, every little hill and valley of her body his to own if only for these few seconds. When he clicks the lock of the door she turns her head, just enough for him to see her profile. "But sometimes I just...I can't take it no more."  
  
"Can't take what?"  
  
"Being alone."  
  
She flinches. Looks away again. He wonders what he said wrong this time.  
  
"I just-"  
  
"It needs to stop," she murmurs.  
  
There's a little stab of panic somewhere in his chest, just like there is every time she plays this game with him, and he starts walking forward before he even knows he wants to move. "There ain't no way-"  
  
"It need to _stop_ , Phil." She don't seem to care when he touches her arms, but he knows better, 'cuz he always does. Even when she's frowning and saying this bullshit, he can see her pulse go a little faster right there, right in her neck. "It's gone on long enough."  
  
"Shut up," he whispers, sliding his hands down her arms, feeling the goosebumps rise up under his fingers.  
  
"I can't keep doing this." But she's leaning back a little. She don't know it, but she is. "How often did it happen before? Once every three, four months? That was a mistake. But now? Once a _week?_ That's not a mistake, that's a-"  
  
"Shut _up_." He touches his forehead to her hair, her softer-than-silk hair, as his fingers swell out over her hips.  
  
" _Stop_ ," she whispers, and there's such a weakness, a vulnerability, to that word that he thinks about doing it. He really does.  
  
He knows better, though, than to listen to her lies. "I can't."  
  
Silence.  
  
"You can't keep doing it, and I can't stop."  
  
"So you're the one that wins out?" she asks, turning her head, brushing a few of those downy curls against his nose.  
  
"Naw," he murmurs. He wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her back, until she's flush against him, and though he wants to make this all physical, all about the way she makes his heart pound and his brow sweat and his body hard, there's a quiet, annoying whisper in the back of his mind reminding him just how nicely she fits here in his arms, that he's almost content just to hold her forever. He buries his face in her hair and breathes in the scent of her to shut that part of him up. "The way I see it, we both win."  
  
"How?" Her voice is shaky. She grips his forearms with an almost bruising hold.  
  
He's quiet for a second, feeling the fervor, riding it out, before he breathes his words, barely audible enough to be heard. "'Cuz you'd rather hurt than feel nothin' at all."  
  
It's true. It's true, and they both know it. They can't have a relationship. They'd kill each other in a week with their big heads and their pride. But they can have this. They _have_ to have this, 'cuz they can't get away from it. He's tried. He's spent whole nights just staring at the ceiling, hard as a rock, his mind full of her, refusing to do a thing about it 'cuz that'll just mean he's weak. He waits until he can't stand it no more, until he's ripping at the seams with actual waves of physical pain, and then and only then does he give in.  
  
As he dips his head to kiss her neck, he moves a hand vaguely to the side, grabbing a picture frame and tipping it facedown on the end table, because he don't want her seeing, neither of them. He wants to stay here, in this fantasy, where it's just him and this blonde siren stripping down, baring themselves, showing the most vulnerable parts of their bodies and souls, 'cuz when it's just them here he thinks he could actually do something to make it work if he just tried a little harder. He don't have to have a long-distance girlfriend somewhere out in Asia or wherever the hell she is that he keeps slapping in the face every time he holds this woman's naked body against his own. He can just live here, day in and day out, no more fighting.  
  
The coffeetable's high. He has her bent down over it, his hands on her hips, when she jostles some papers looking for a firm place to lean against. It takes him a moment of her utter stillness before he realizes she's seen it, seen the sparkle, seen the ring, and he feels an acrid sting right in the back of his throat. Neither of them say a word. But as he takes her, gentle and slow, they both stare at it and feel the pain as keenly as they feel the burn.


End file.
